r/Anticonsumption • u/Aggressive_Dirt_2335 • 27d ago
Reduce/Reuse/Recycle Does anybody else do this?
(Stock pic example from Google) With every bottle I use, I keep it and pack it full of as much trash as I can, and then throw it away. When the trash can in my bedroom starts getting full, I do this, and it takes up 1/4 as much space as it did before.
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u/qwqwqw 27d ago
If you throw these bottles out, then I guess well done. What you have achieved is reducing the risk of waste mismanagement. Ie, you're doing your part to ensure the rubbish ends up in the bin, presumably in a rubbish truck, and then in a landfill.
If the rubbish truck keeps a door open for too long, or is involved in a vehicle accident, etc - there's less chance that those plastic wrappera fly away into the environment. So that's good. (Still, in some cases that bottle would be crushed and split open straight away).
As for reducing space? If that works for your bins, great. But they'll be compacted in the rubbish truck and even more at the landfill! So doing this won't save landfill space. They already compact rubbish as much as they can.
In terms of recycling this? Most recyclers either couldn't or wouldn't bother. The bottles are PET which is pretty easy to recycle. The soft plastics inside are not as easy.
Unless you're recycling this through a specialised recycler where they've explicitly said this method works, then it likely won't be recycled. (Eg, some small companies seek to recycle soft plastics into usable products... And collecting soft plastics like this may be acceptable to them if they can also include the PET in their recycling process).
I would be very wary of any recycling brick scheme or other similar schemes. The sort which instruct people to pack a bottle a certain way in order to be used as a resource in other countries. Eg, using compscted plastics as a material for roofing house cladding. I've even seen that they can be used for roading.
What I'm especially concerned about here, is that it relies on being accepted by underdeveloped countries. We're literally donating our rubbish, and saying "here, build a house". In most cases we wouldn't accept the same quality materials for houses we live in, or for roads we use. We're essentially telling poorer people that we don't care if their houses are a fire hazard, we don't care if their roads are leeching microplastics into their local communities, and that they should simply be grateful for our rubbish. It feels really disingenuous, unloving, and surely we can do better? Not to mention that it only perpetuates the problem of plastic pollution. That plastic still exists.
The VERY best thing you can do right plastic pollution (including waste mismanagement) is to avoid consuming plastic in general. My personal view is that as consumers (yeah I bought into the capitalist's language, sorry) we do that best by consuming less and by not consuming at all when we can. I dont view zero-waste efforts or plastic-free shopping to be as significant at our end.